Various card handling devices have heretofore been provided for successively feeding cards, such as data cards, containing data in the form of perforations or printed indicia arranged in laterally spaced rows extending along the card or check, past a reading station at which the data, or the perforations or indicia representative of the data, are scanned by a reader head to transmit the information or data to a computer for storage or conversion to legible data.
Problems have been encountered in the apparatus in respect of establishing and maintaining alignment of the card with the reading station within acceptable limits to avoid erroneous readings or machine stoppage when excessive mis-alignment occurs. Among other things, alignment problems reduce the effective reading rate of the apparatus, because of the necessity, in many cases, to operate at low feed rates and because of frequent stoppage. These problems have persisted, notwithstanding the advent of expensive and complicated apparatus, including, for example, vacuum type feed rollers. Such prior machines, moreover, experience difficulty in the proper handling of cards which have been folded, bent, spindled, or otherwise mutilated, for example, by torn edges.
Regarding reading accuracy or inaccuracy caused by misalignment, conventional data card, including check, handling apparatus provides a feeding station to which the cards are supplied in stacks, the cards being fed successively from the bottom of the stack. The alignment of the cards with the reading head at the reading station is accomplished by guides spaced apart to provide limited tolerance for the opposite longitudinal edges of the cards. The feeding of the cards is accomplished by spaced capstans or rollers which engage the cards as they travel to and past the reading station. The cards, however, are capable of skewing in their path of travel, that is, to move angularly within the guides about an axis perpendicular to the path of travel. Moreover, the cards are unrestrained except at the points of contact with the feed rollers or capstans and are, therefore, free to flutter, that is, to partake of an undulating motion or transverse flexure. When the cards in such apparatus are engaged between a spaced pair of capstans or rollers, the unavoidable and inherent differential peripheral speeds of the capstans or rollers, caused by dimensional differences in the rollers themselves and in the drive therefor, causes longitudinal buckling of the cards.
All of these alignment problems which can cause erroneous reading or machine stoppage can occur at the critical point, where uniformity of alignment and speed is most needed, namely, at the reading station.
When the cards leave the reading station, they are successively fed to a receiver. If a preceding card is in the path of a following card, the following card may contact the card in front of it and as a result be caused to be slightly retarded, causing stoppage of the conventional apparatus which generally includes sensing means for detecting slight longitudinal shifting of the card during the period that it is being read, to avoid erroneous readout. While auger type shifting devices have been employed in an effort to positively move the preceding card from the path of the following card, such auger type devices are only partially effective since the cards may be deterred in their travel by impingement upon the crest of the helical rib of the auger, thus causing stoppage of the apparatus and potential edge damage to the card.